Wednesday Special: The Many Faces of Cloud

"Wednesday Special" is always something sort, possibly sweet, and usually accompanied by images or videos.

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When I was writing Sunday's post that showed how much (or rather how little) I remember of the various plots in the Final Fantasy games, there was one aspect of Final Fantasy VII that I did recall clearly: the inconsistency of each main character's appearance throughout the game.  This would be forgivable if it was simply the in-game model and the FMV model.  But it isn't.  Here's the different ways Cloud looked like throughout the game (excluding costume changes).

Left: Render, Center: Field Model, Right: Menu Portrait

Left: FMVs with the low-res model, Right: FMVs with the high-res model

Left: Battle Model, Right: Model used only in the final battle

 Images courtesy of the Final Fantasy Wiki

"Stay Where You Belong... in My Memories" - Total (Horrible) Recall of Final Fantasy Plots Part II

Here's where I play catch-up on the posts from 2011 that never received their proper second part during my hiatus.  I didn't forget about them, I just don't want to flood the blog with these all at once.

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Sephiroth's mother? Kinda sorta.

Part One of this post is from alllll the way back in August.

I really don't want to think about all of the hours I put into the Final Fantasy series throughout the years.  As technology grew more advanced, so did the storylines.  The Playstation era saw less of the "collect the four crystals" quests and more "our hero/villain doesn't remember his/her past!"  The same thing happened to me: despite the days of my life that were lost to these games, the storylines are but a memory.  I can recall a few basic details, albeit fuzzy around the edges.

Rest of post hidden behind the jump due to spoilers (maybe).

How I Learned to Stop Complaining and Love the Achievement

No, seriously, you can earn an achievement for anything.

When I was first introduced to the Xbox 360, one of the first things I noticed (aside from the jump in graphics quality and the sheer size of the console) was the weird pop-up that would blare across the screen telling me that I completed some menial task:

"Okay, let me start this game.  Where's the start button? Oh, here it is..."
*DING* "Achievement unlocked! You pressed start to play!
"What was that? Ok, I guess I'll watch this intro video here..."
*DING* "Achievement unlocked! You watched the intro movie!"
"Really? Ok, now let me figure out these controls on this massive controller.  Oh, cool, pop-ups with instructions.  Press A to..."
*DING* "Achievement unlocked! You jumped!"
"What the hell!?" *throws controller against wall*
*DING* "Achievement unlocked! You broke a..."
*smashes the Xbox 360*

Perhaps it didn't quite go like that, but that's how it felt.  I didn't see a necessity for these achievements, and I failed to understand why people would try to earn as many of these as possible.  I recall message board threads listing games with easily unlockable achievements and the amount of Gamerscore points up for grabs.  Why anyone would buy or rent a terrible game just to get 1,000G in two minutes was beyond my understanding of the current state of the video game industry.

That was, until I became one of those people.

Once I finally bought a PC powerful enough to play newly released games, one of the first things I did was install Steam.  I wasn't long until I went crazy during their summer sale (which should be coming up again very soon) and bought some cheap games.  Alongside both the summer and winter sales, Steam also ran a contest where you could gain additional entries by earning certain achievements in games.  While I never bought a game outright just to earn an achievement, I found myself finally installing some of the games from the various indie bundles so I could get the associated achievement.  Most of those games I haven't played since, but at least it game me a reason to try them out.  (And depending on the difficulty/length of time required to get the achievement, I didn't bother to get some of them if I didn't particularly like the game so far.)

I'm in favor of achievements in games where completing a certain task can earn you bragging rights.  Sure, back when the original Final Fantasy was released on the NES you could easily tell your friends that you defeated Warmech, but aside from your friends witnessing it firsthand or you recording it, you had no proof of your achievement.  Later games in the series had the superbosses drop an exclusive item as a trophy, so the achievement can be seen as a successor to that system.

Another area where I see the benefit of achievements is in open-ended games like Skyrim.  In looking at a player's profile, you can see a summary of that person's play style and their journey through the game.  Here's what my list of Skyrim achievements say about how I played the game:

• I decided to join the Companions, College of Winterhold, and Thieves Guild, but thought I was too good for the Dark Brotherhood.
• I took a side in the Civil War instead of remaining neutral.
• I never completed the main quest line and instead opted for side quests and miscellaneous objectives.
• I bought a house and eloped with an NPC.
• I ransacked 50 dungeons and filled in 100 locations on my map.
• I read 50 skill books and got at least one of my skills up to level 100.
• I fell under the influence of the Daedric Princes and acquired some of their artifacts.
• I Fus Ro Dah'ed at least 20 dragons and absorbed their souls.
• I put enough hours into the game where I reached level 50.
• I never had to escape from jail and I don't hoard all of my gold.

While I started out as an opponent to the idea of earning achievements, in the past year I've grown to embrace it.  From showing that I finally completed "Odyssey" in BIT.TRIP RUNNER to successfully getting that basketball in the hoop for a secret achievement in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, achievements offer that little extra goal to reach in a game beyond simply defeating the final boss, regardless of the points it adds to your Gamerscore.

Image template credit to Timon1771 at Deviant Art.

"What You Remember, That is the Illusion" - My Horrible Recall of Final Fantasy Storylines (Part One)

At least this quote survived the three subsequent English releases.

After playing it on and off for a few months (beginning when I realized it was still in the shrink wrap after three years of ownership), I recently played much more of Final Fantasy V Advance to the point where it can actually be considered progress.  This got me thinking about the other Final Fantasy games that I played and that despite playing many of them to completion, for the life of me I can't remember many significant plot points.  Granted, for some it has been about 10 years since I last played them, so details will indeed get fuzzy.  But on the other hand, there are other games that also have convoluted plots that I can remember despite the length of time since my last play-through.  So after the jump is what I can remember of the plots of the first five Final Fantasy games, so here's a spoiler warning! (Or not!)

Five Sexy Gaming Guys

Look at this GQ mother F%&$er!

I'm just going to make one statement clear: While this isn't a video game blog only geared towards females, given the fact that I am a girl, you're going to get some posts like this.  While game creators generally have guys in mind for the game's audience, it's always nice to have some eye candy for the ladies.  Guys, you can go divert you attention to Lara Croft or whoever is the current jiggly-bits character of your gaming fantasies.  I'll be distracted by these five fine gentlemen.